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Joshua Reynolds

Joshua Reynolds Quotes

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Famous Joshua Reynolds Quotes

“Perhaps blue, red, and yellow strike the mind more forcibly from there not being any great union between them, as martial music, which is intended to rouse the nobler passions.”

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Book:The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds: Containing His Discourses, Idlers, A Journey to Flanders and Holland, and His Commentary on Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting; to which is Prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author by Edward Malone
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“If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art... the minute painter would be more apt to succeed. But it is not the eye, it is the mind which the painter of genius desires to address.”

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Book:The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds: Containing His Discourses, Idlers, A Journey to Flanders and Holland, and His Commentary on Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting; to which is Prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author by Edward Malone
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“The true test of all the arts is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind.”

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Book:The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds: Containing His Discourses, Idlers, A Journey to Flanders and Holland, and His Commentary on Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting; to which is Prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author by Edward Malone
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“An artist who brings to his work a mind tolerably furnished with the general principles of art, and a taste formed upon the works of good artists – in short, who knows in what excellence consists - will, with the assistance of models... be an overmatch for the greatest painter that ever lived who should be debarred such advantages.”

KnowsShouldMindArtArtistPrinciplesTasteModelsAdvantageExcellencePainterAssistanceGood ArtGood Artist
Book:Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, delivered at the Royal Academy. With a portrait
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“Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have.”

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Book:The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds
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“I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the Student, when he compares them, or misguide him if he gives himself up to their authority; but bringing them under one general head, can alone give rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind.”

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Book:Discourses on the Fine Arts Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy
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“Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labor. It argues no small strength of mind to persevere in habits of industry without the pleasure of perceiving those advances, which, like the hand of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation.”

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Book:Seven Discourses on Art
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